


Long way home

by vaguely_concerned



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, M/M, Oneshot, Pining, Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 04:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguely_concerned/pseuds/vaguely_concerned
Summary: In which Jesse talks to dragons and wonders why they chose him, of all people, to help their wounded master.





	Long way home

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by tumblr user [nickutried’s](http://nickutried.tumblr.com/) art, in particular [this post right here ](http://nickutried.tumblr.com/post/160249815497/random-au-where-mccree-runs-into-some-guarding)— please check it out if you haven’t already, it’s good stuff! This will also probably make a lot more sense if you've seen the art first ha ha.

The dragon is watching the sunset as its twin lies curled up asleep next to it, letting out a low humming snore that sounds like nothing so much as a giant cat purring. When it spots Jesse it ducks its head in acknowledgement, a formal yet oddly cordial gesture.

Jesse tips his hat and takes up position next to a gnarled tree valiantly clawing for purchase on the craggy hillside. Beneath them the valley is dappled with golden light, patterns shifting as the sun goes down.

“Nice view,” Jesse comments eventually.

“Indeed. I trust you are well?”

The rumble of the dragon’s voice is like distant thunder in his mind, even as its mouth doesn’t move.

“Sure. Thanks for askin’.” Maybe he’s just going crazy but he thinks he’s getting used to the sheer size of them; having them towering in his peripheral vision has somehow gone from deeply unsettling to comforting over the last half a year or so.  

The dragon tilts its head as if in polite inquiry. “You two have seemed busy today. Is he still doing better?”

Now that they seem confident their master’s wounds will all heal they have dialled back on the mother henning, to Hanzo’s obvious relief, but they still grill Jesse about how he’s doing from time to time as if he is privy to something they’re not.

“Yeah, think so. He’s just finishin’ up some training stuff,” Jesse says, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder towards the tent. “Apparently tossing me around like so much lint doesn’t quite cut it on its own.”

To be fair to himself it’s not like he’s really a pushover when it comes to the hand to hand stuff — he has survived enough bar brawls unscathed to prove that much, at least — it’s just that Hanzo seems to be made of different stuff than mortal men that way. Jesse has a sneaking suspicion that Hanzo considers him a sort of glorified free weight in these situations, but he can’t really say he minds. The sparring is nice, actually; it’s been a while and when you find him in the right mood Hanzo’s a surprisingly patient teacher. Never too late to pick up some new tricks.

(If Jesse has some less honorable reasons to not mind Hanzo pinning him to the ground with amused, fluid ease… that’s neither here nor there, and no one ever needs to know.)

“Have you decided where to go from here?”

“We’re looking to head north tomorrow. Mark seems to be tryin’ to shake us through the mountain passes, so we’re gonna cut him off half way.”

Considering that only one of the involved parties has the advantage of actual flying dragons… Jesse’s not too worried about this one. He’d almost feel bad for the guy, if he made a habit of feeling bad for men who have lined their own pockets by sending children to their deaths in unsecured mines.

It makes a vague sound — the dragons seem wholly disinterested in the details of any job beyond what’s needed to keep Hanzo safe. Jesse guesses that if he were a hundred feet long and could generally fit anyone trying to mess with him into his mouth in one chew he’d take the long view more too. “You are staying with us, then.”

Jesse clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “At least until the end of this job, sure.”

The dragon blinks its huge eyes at him with indulgent amused knowing. Jesse feels the tips of his ears grow warm and tilts his hat into his face slightly. Man, he needs to work on getting his poker face back in place.

“This is good,” the dragon says simply.

“Yeah, well.” He’s still smiling, though, doesn’t quite know how to make himself stop. Folding his arms over his chest he stands there a while soaking up the last warmth of the setting sun. The air is clear and sharp up here, like autumn’s making an early guest appearance.

He lights a cigar, trying to gather both the courage and the words he needs. As nice as all this has been — is, he supposes — he still doesn’t know the why of it, and it’s been bothering him.

Finally he says: “Y’know, I keep meanin’ to ask… Back there, when you found me. Why’d you choose me to help him, of all people? I’m hardly the kinda guy you reach for when you need a medic.”

The dragon takes some time to answer. “There was a recognition; there is something alike in you. You feel the same.”

“And how might that be.”

No pause this time, no need for deliberation: “Homeless.”

Jesse leans back against the tree, crossing his legs at the ankles and not looking away from the horizon. “...well.”

The dragon tips its head to one side pensively. “Does this surprise you?”

Jesse buys some time by breathing in a lungful of smoke and letting it out slowly. “No,” he says. “S’pose it doesn’t. Could’ve just asked me, though, instead of trying your claw at kidnapping.”

“Would you have said yes?”

“Well, I sure as hell almost said no after bein’ dangled by the scruff of my neck over twenty miles of rocky countryside, you might as well have given talking a shot first and gone from there.”

The dragon chuckles. It sounds a little like a jovial earthquake. “Your insight, as always, is most illuminating. I will take it under consideration for next time.”

“What, you got plans to snatch someone else? Lookin’ to replace me with a better model so soon?” He means it as a joke.

Lowering its head the dragon bumps its snout against his chest, absurdly gentle for such a humongous thing.

“No,” it says, gazing down at him. This close you can’t help but smell it, like the scent in the air just before a thunderstorm and the sharp used fireworks tang of magic.

Jesse tries to meet its eyes but has to look away — still, he reaches out and lets his hand rest on its head, hoping that says what he doesn’t know how to. The dragon closes its eyes and turns into the touch like a cat. An enormous, scaly, startlingly-hot-to-the-touch cat conjured out of inexplicable arcane forces. Brushing his thumb over the smooth blue scales he wonders again where the hell Hanzo comes from to have ended up here, this wealth of magic bound to him and full up with ghosts like a haunted house of a man. He’s seen enough to know it wasn’t anywhere good, but then that’s a safe bet for anyone living the way they do, drifting from place to place and job to job.

Everyone out here carries their own ghosts with them, yeah, but Hanzo seems uniquely loyal to his.

Jesse’s left hand looks less unnatural against the pattern of the scales somehow, like the metal could have grown into the shape organically instead of under a hammer. Perhaps he should’ve asked Torbjörn to add in some filigree or engravings or whatever when he’d had it made, soften up the look of it a bit.  

“Hell, what do I know,” Jesse sighs, letting his hand fall away. “Maybe kidnapping was the right call in this case. Not like anyone’s gonna miss me.”

“No?”

“No.”

Not now, and perhaps, in truth, never; for a while there he’d thought… well, easy mistake to make. Happens to the best of us. Half of them are dead now, anyway.

“He would. If you left.”

Jesse looks at his feet and doesn’t answer.

“He has been alone for a very long time,” the dragon says. “He has never let anyone stay before.”

An image flashes through his mind: Hanzo lying broken on the ground the first time he saw him, all that blood slicking the grass. Jesse flinches a little, shaking his head to make it go away. “He ever get hurt like that before?”  

“Never. Before this I had not even seen anyone land a blow on him if he did not intend them to. He closes off his mind and refuses to tell us why he let them…” The dragon trails off. “Hm. I suppose his reasons are his to share or to keep as he wishes. Perhaps you could ask him, though.”

Jesse snorts, scuffing his heel against the ground. “Sure, that’ll go over well.”

“Hm?”

“Listen, my ma used to tell me both that you don’t gamble with somethin’ you’re not happy to lose and that only idiots go around opening old wounds expecting anything but blood. Smart lady — never had reason to doubt her before.”

“Could one question really change everything? You think yourself so insignificant?”

_…I don’t want to have to leave again._ _Not this time._

“I’ll think about it, how ‘bout that,” Jesse says. “If the… moment seems right or whatever.”

The dragon lets him off the hook, giving a thoughtful hum and gazing back out over the valley.

After twenty minutes or so Hanzo turns up, clearly having had a quick wash in the nearby stream, shirt carelessly open and his hair down, still damp and tangling over his shoulders — it’s grown out a bit in the time they’ve known each other. Jesse takes a deep pull on the cigar.

“Hello again,” Hanzo says as he reaches out to absent-mindedly stroke the head of the sleeping dragon, who stirs amicably and cracks one eye open. You can see the pink lines of the scars on Hanzo’s chest through the opening in his shirt when he lifts his arm like that, too raw for Jesse’s liking even now but still healing.

“Hey,” Jesse says, giving a little wave with the cigar. Hanzo glances at him from behind a curtain of dark hair, his mouth soft with a small smile — he always looks more relaxed after a workout, as if he’s managed to burn away some of that tight terse restlessness he carries himself with. Those first few weeks of bedrest must’ve damn near killed him, in hindsight. “All wrapped up?”

“Mhm. You two — we have a long flight ahead tomorrow. You are free to hunt the rest of the night,” Hanzo says, giving the dragon’s flank a friendly slap. “Be back before dawn.”

The newly awoken dragon gives an anticipatory shiver, and were it just a smidge less draconically regal and dignified you get the feeling an excitable _‘fuck yeah’_ might enter the picture right about here. It uncoils itself, exchanges looks with its twin and then gives a blithe nod to Hanzo and Jesse before rising up.

They take off and as always it’s disconcertingly quiet — some part of Jesse’s brain is still trying to argue that nothing that massive should be able to fly, never mind so silently. One of them twirls in a loop in the air on the way up, seemingly in a simple fit of joie de vivre. Jesse chuckles.

“Someone’s about to have a fun night out, anyway.”

Hanzo gives a noise of agreement as he folds his arms and leans against the tree next to Jesse, close enough that Jesse can feel the warmth of him along his side. It’s a peculiar, delightful sort of torture.

“So long as they do not overdo it and get careless again. If we are set upon by another huddle of villagers with pitchforks and torches I will be less than pleased.”

“I dunno, being mistaken for an evil sorcerer was kinda flattering, in a way. A class above the stuff people tend to want to arrest me for on sight.”

Hanzo huffs. “If not for your quick thinking we might have had to fend them off by more direct means. They should have fallen to their knees and thanked you.”

“Hell, if everything could be solved so easily by settin’ off some fireworks and shouting a lotta mystical-sounding mumbo jumbo…”

Grinning down at his feet Hanzo gently bumps their shoulders together. “It was an inspired move, I grant you that. If… characteristically unorthodox.”

“And I’ll stop bragging ‘bout it when I’m dead, that’s the one fuckin’ thing I’ve gotten right in years.”

His shoulder feels warm for much longer than it should from the brief contact, his chest even longer from the sound of Hanzo laughing. They watch the dragons fly away until they’re just faint pinpricks on the horizon.  

Hanzo pulls his hair away from his face, the fading light playing over the silver at his temples. He shoots Jesse a look as he ties it back.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jesse says, kicking away from the tree. “Let’s get some stew goin’. You cut the cabbage, I’ll do my best with the spice we got left, it’ll be good.”

Hanzo grins a little as he does up a few buttons on his shirt. “Mhm, no hunting for _us_ until tomorrow. I fear our evening may have to be a little more mundane.”

“Guess we’ll just have to make our own fun,” Jesse says, feeling all blood leave his face as his brain hears what his mouth just said and in what tone.

“Perhaps if we drink for long enough you could even beat me honestly in a game of cards,” Hanzo says breezily, thankfully sauntering off like he hasn’t picked up on the innuendo Jesse hadn’t quite meant to slide in there.

“Hey, that’s lies and slander, I’ve won my fair share of rounds,” Jesse protests, scrambling to follow him when he throws a glance over his shoulder.

“Because you cheat.”

“Because I cheat,” Jesse agrees, slinging his arm companionably over Hanzo’s shoulder. “That’s half the game, the gettin’ away with it. Doesn’t get more honest than that. I could teach you some of the tricks of the trade, if you’d like, never know when you might need an ace or five up your sleeve.”

“Who could turn down an offer like that?”

When he’s honest with himself Jesse can admit that the way Hanzo’s eyes narrow when he laughs makes him want to go all in with a bad hand, even if he knows he should by all rights have folded and walked away from the table months ago. Amari had been right all those years ago; he never did figure out how to quit while he’s ahead. It can only be a matter of time before his bluff is called and Hanzo realizes he’ll always be more trouble than he’s worth — but, well. He’s not proud. He’ll take what he can for as long as his luck will let him.

“We’ll make a proper scoundrel of you yet,” Jesse promises, the twilight settling around them as they walk.

**Author's Note:**

> Needless to say while Jesse’s freaking out about this, Hanzo lies awake at night staring up at the inside of the tent going ‘But how do I let McCree know how loved and wanted he is???’ haha, I am nothing if not predictably On Brand at all times 
> 
> I’m not sure yet if I’ll write more for this AU or not, I just wanted to write something inspired by this art for such a long time! If I do end up doing it it’ll likely be a longer more involved affair so please don’t hold your breath, you WILL die and I can’t be responsible for that D:


End file.
